David Correia, center, leaves federal court in Manhattan last year. Photo: Kevin Hagen/AP

David Correia, who is charged alongside two associates of Rudy Giuliani in an alleged scheme to funnel foreign money into U.S. elections, has lost his bid to suppress evidence he mailed to his lawyer just before he was arrested last year.

A Manhattan federal judge ruled Monday that the package, which included two notebooks, a hard drive, a computer and a smartphone, was not protected by attorney-client privilege and the attorney work-product doctrine.

According to court documents, Correia sent the package from a DHL overseas last October, shortly after he learned that Giuliani's associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, were arrested on criminal campaign-finance charges.

At the time, Correia's attorney, Jeff Marcus of Marcus, Neiman, Rashbaum & Pineiro, had arranged for his client to fly back to the U.S. and self-surrender in the Southern District of New York. However, Correia informed his counsel just before his planned take-off that he had left his passport at the DHL, which had closed for the evening, causing him to miss his flight.

Prosecutors later executed a search warrant on the sealed package, and used a filter team to review its contents for privileged material.

William Harrington, who is representing Correia in the criminal case, had argued that the package itself represented a privileged attorney-client communication because Correia had sent the items in order to obtain legal advice and to prepare a defense to the criminal charges he was facing.

"These intrusions into hallowed legal privileges and protections cannot be left to stand, particularly given the government's awesome power to obtain attorney-client communications," Harrington, a partner with Goodwin Procter, wrote in an April 3 filing.

"A rule that permitted the government to use these powers to peer into attorney-client communications would drastically reduce the confidentiality currently afforded in the American legal system to criminal defendants communicating with their lawyers," he said.

Prosecutors in the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office responded in court papers that Correia could not "render the evidence privileged simply by mailing it to his attorney." Correia, they said, knew he would be arrested as soon as he entered the United States, and had mailed the materials to ensure that he "did not have a single electronic device or piece of relevant evidence on his person" upon arrival.

Even if the package did constitute a privileged communication, prosecutors argued, that privilege would not extend to the electronic devices and notebooks inside.

U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken of the Southern District of New York on Monday sided with the government in ruling that the proposed "blanket suppression" Correia sought would run counter to the narrow protections that the privilege was meant to provide.

"To allow this vast swath of materials to be considered privileged is the antithesis of this court's mandate to narrowly construe the attorney-client privilege," Oetken wrote in an eight-page opinion. "Indeed, such an exception would swallow the rule: by simply sending to counsel all materials that could potentially be relevant, a client could render all relevant material in her case privileged and concealed from the opposing party."

Contacted by email Monday, Harrington declined to comment on the ruling.

Correia and a fourth defendant, Andrey Kukushkin, are charged in an Oct. 10 indictment with making political donations that were secretly funded by a Russian businessman in order to win favor for a planned recreational marijuana business.

Parnas and Fruman, who both performed work on behalf of Giuliani, are accused of making political contributions exceeding the legal limit and then trying to cover up the source of the funds. Among the donations was a $325,000 contribution in May 2018 to America First Action, Inc., a super PAC supporting President Donald Trump.

Giuliani, the former New York mayor turned personal attorney to the president, has not been charged and denies any wrongdoing.